Two prominent British design studios are the latest independent firms to get hoovered up by a large company.

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The 2,100-person digital agency AKQA has acquired a majority stake in both Universal Design Studio, a 52-person architecture firm, and Map Project Office, the 10-person experimental design studio (and Fast Company Most Innovative Company) responsible for everything from DIY computer kits for the tech startup Kano to a three-in-one utensil called the Tritensil to in-flight service items for Virgin Atlantic.

[Photo: courtesy MAP]

Both Universal and Map were founded by celebrated British designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. Barber and Osgerby run a third firm, the industrial design studio Barber & Osgerby, which is best known for developing the Olympic Torch at the London Games and a sleek Vitra task chair favored at Apple’s new headquarters. Barber and Osgerby now own a minority stake in Universal and Map, and will oversee both firms as board directors. They will also continue operating Barber & Osgerby independently.

AKQA’s CEO Ajaz Ahmed with Jay Osgerby and Edward Barber. [Photo: courtesy MAP]The acquisitions give AKQA coveted design capabilities at a time when many companies see design as crucial to their business strategy. Map and Universal, meanwhile, get access to the resources of an approximately $200 million company and, no doubt, the type of thorny design projects that typically go to bigger creative agencies. “The most compelling business case for this partnership has been in the market for a while now, but not taken advantage of yet,” Osgerby writes in an email. “It’s the void of a multidisciplinary practice group that serves clients with needs more ambitious or complex than one practice area can solve.”

[Photo: courtesy MAP]These moves have led some onlookers to question whether today’s business climate supports independent design–and to wonder what’s lost in the consolidation of design talent. Osgerby sees it differently. Companies have complex design problems, and they have to be attacked on all fronts; you can’t simply design a great tablet or a beautiful app and call it a day. “There are fewer boundaries between the professional design services, and there is a need for greater reach and flexibility, globally,” he says. “Design practices can’t exist in silos and remain at the forefront of specialized industries because the borders between disciplines are dissolving.”

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About the author

Suzanne LaBarre is the editor of Co.Design. Previously, she was the online content director of Popular Science and has written for the New York Times, the New York Observer, Newsday, I.D.